Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Smartphone Awards: 2014!”.
Hey what is up guys mkbhd here and a lot of smartphones come out every single year. Right and 2014 was clearly no exception to that rule. So, with the holidays coming up and beyond uh, there are a lot of different options to choose from a lot of different choices to make your daily driver. So this video is your one: stop shop for picking one. This will hopefully give you the best option to choose for your phone for the next two years to sign a contract with so of all the smartphones that were released into the world in 2014.
These are the best options from each category and i’m not just going to give a best, i’m going to give a first place so generally, the best option, a second place, so sort of a runner-up, still really good and an honorable mention or two so also some Really good options, even though they’re not first place worthy of consideration, so of all the stuff we’ve seen come out in the last 300 something days. These are the smartphone awards 2014.. So the first category is big phones and we’ve seen a lot of huge phones released over the course of the year they keep getting bigger every single year. I hesitate to use the word phablet because even the definition of that word changes from year to year, but these are the best big phones and your first best option is the samsung galaxy note. 4.. The note 4 is an awesome phone. It has a 5.7 inch, quad hd amoled display that i’d say is arguably the best in any smartphone right now. It has a massive battery, a really good battery life, an excellent camera, beastly specs and performance, and it’s the one that’s actually best at taking advantage of being so big with the software say what you want about touchwiz, but its multitasking capabilities on top of android 4.4 And hopefully, lollipop soon are second to none. It has a ton of features that use the entire display and it has a stylus that s pen for even more multitasking fun. So, overall, the best large phone experience is with the note 4 and if you’re going to go huge, you might as well go all the way. The second best option, i’ll give for a really big phone to consider this year, is the iphone 6 plus it’s the first huge iphone that apple has put out.
It has a 5.5 inch display, which is like barely making the cut for huge phones, but it counts. It’S the biggest i’ve ever made, and it’s really good. My honorable mention for a huge phone is going to go to the nexus 6, which has a 5.9 inch quad hd display and also worth mentioning, is the samsung galaxy s5. It’S not quite as huge as the other ones we’ve talked about, but the nexus 6 is running stock android. It’S a pure google experience phone.
It’S going to be first in line for updates all the typical pros of being a nexus device. Again, all the reviews, i’ll have of all the devices i talk about in this article, will be linked right below that like button. If you want to check them out and the samsung galaxy s5, it’s a standard, samsung flagship, even though the note i think, is a clearly better phone in a lot of ways. There are a lot of things to like about the galaxy s5 in a not quite as massive package.
Also, i want to mention one more, the lg g3. I put it in the big phones category as it has a 5.5 inch display, but it’s the one that actually doesn’t have a huge feel in the hand. It does a great job of not feeling really big with these thinner, bezels and nice design so worth considering. As a big phone now, speaking of and not quite as massive package uh, this is the next category, which is compact phones, the best compact phones released in 2014 and by far and away the best option.
Here is the sony xperia z3 compact. It fits in a tiny footprint and this is the little brother to the larger sony xperia z3, but it makes almost no trade-offs or compromises when moving down to the smaller size, which is what compact phone lovers really want. So it has excellent specs and performance with the snapdragon, 801 and 2gigs of ram. It has a 20 megapixel sony camera, which is of course excellent in typical sony fashion, and it has a 4.6 inch, 720p display on the front, which is great and yes, by today’s standards that does make it compact you’re packing a 2600 milliamp hour battery with quick Charging technology front-facing speakers and it’s ip68 certified, so there’s a lot going on in this little package and it is on top of its game right now for the second best compact phone of the year, i’m gon na give that to the samsung galaxy alpha, which is Essentially, a miniature version of the galaxy note 4, which is the best large phone of the year. So there’s not a lot to dislike about the galaxy alpha. It’S compact, it’s well built. It has metal everywhere. Of course that’s what it’s known for, plus it has a great display and again high-end internals and nice specs in a small phone.
It’S really what small phone lovers want in a nutshell, so my honorable mention for compact phones is the iphone 6 and, although i like the iphone 6 plus better in basically every way it has more space inside for a larger battery and optical image. Stabilization and various other things, but the iphone 6 is still a great phone and for people who don’t want to move up to a huge phone. The three that i’ve listed here are excellent options. If you still like to one-handed text, if you still like to use your phone all the time with one hand, if you still put it in your front pocket and you don’t like the huge phones sticking out the front these options, you can’t really go wrong. So this next category is for your photographers who like to take pictures or photos on your smartphone all the time. These are the best smartphone cameras out there or really the best cameras. That also happen to be a part of a smartphone and i’m going to give the first best option to the iphone 6 plus and the second best option to the samsung galaxy. Note 4. – and i mentioned these at the same time, because they’re so very similar in a lot of ways. If you focus a lot on photos, i’ll give the edge to the iphone 6 plus. But if you focus a lot on videos i’ll give the edge to the galaxy note 4., so the iphone 6 plus gets the edge in the photo department for its superior image, processing and optical image stabilization, and it also has a relatively large sensor and pixel size. So while it’s just an 8 megapixel camera, that does mean it has really good low light performance.
It also happens to be ridiculously fast, even taking hdr shots and overall it produces some of the most pleasing and most accurate colors from any smartphone camera. I’Ve ever seen, unfortunately, 8 megapixels does limit it in the video department to 1080p, and that’s where the galaxy note 4 steps in. So if you take a lot of video on your smartphone and if you absolutely must have the best of the best, the note 4 is the clear choice: shooting 4k video from a 16 megapixel sensor, which is super sharp and crispy and colorful and beautiful. It also has optical image stabilization and takes great photos too, just a very different character altogether. The note 4 photos tend to be much more saturated and sharpened than normal, while you may or may not like that, it is definitely the clear winner here for video. Now, after the top, five or so smartphone, cameras do tend to deteriorate very quickly, but i’ll give an honorable mention to the sony. Xperia z3 sony we already know, does excellent smartphone camera optics, and this z3 is no exception.
It’S a 20 megapixel camera like the xperia z3 compact i talked about and it takes excellent photos as well and does happen to be capable of 4k video again so, if you’re in the market for a smartphone camera or a camera that takes really good pictures and Also happens to be attached to a smartphone. Those are your three best options. Now, let’s be honest, a lot of the phones we’re talking about here are basically super phones. They have all the high-end specs they’re, essentially the best of what these manufacturers have to offer and that’s why they’re winning awards, as they have all these high-end parts, but they often cost a lot of money on or off contract. But sometimes you want a new smartphone and you don’t want it to cost an arm and a leg, especially during the holiday season.
You might want to get a nice inexpensive phone. That’S still really good, so i’ll. Consider under 400 bucks off contract the best budget smartphones of the year for 2014 and my easy, easy hands down first place choice is the one plus one now the thing about the oneplus one, i mean it’s an excellent phone in basically, every way the build quality Is great, the camera is really good. The display is really good.
It’S a fast performer. The software is excellent. The battery life is incredible. It’S going to be first in line for updates when cyanogenmod gets to this thing, so it’s a really really good phone. In a lot of ways and for 16 gigs 350 bucks, it’s a no-brainer, but the thing is you can’t really buy it. Yet i reviewed this thing months ago and it’s still really difficult to place an order and just get this phone without going through some convoluted invite system, or something like that. So if you don’t want to have to wait to try to get this thing, you don’t have to jump through hoops. The second best option is your moto g, 2014.
sort of like the little brother to the new moto x, with a stock android experience and a front-facing speaker again and not awful camera and super inexpensive game changing at 180 bucks. I also have to give an honorable mention to the nexus 5. It wasn’t released this year. Technically, it’s a 2013 release, but it’s basically still right now, it’s also under 400 bucks and it’s a really good phone again you’re gon na get essentially first in line for software updates uh for at least the next year or two, and i think this would not Be a bad phone at all to sign a contract with for two years, but you probably don’t have to because it’s a nice easy budget phone, so nexus 5 is worth considering. Just for that now i want to give out a couple specialty awards, because there are some noteworthy phones that would not have otherwise been mentioned in these top categories. The first one i want to mention is a most improved award and this one might come as a bit of surprise for people who have seen my videos or watched me for more than a couple of months. But i’m getting the most improved award for 2014 to a blackberry and it’s not just because it’s red and black, but this is the blackberry passport. Now i still wouldn’t use a blackberry daily. It’S not that good! Yet and that’s actually a big reason. I haven’t reviewed it in detail is because every phone i review, i use as a daily driver, but, despite its weird looks, turns out. The passport has gotten a lot better in the software department. I’M not saying a 4.5 inch square display is just what this company needs, but with three gigs of ram and a snapdragon 801 and a 3400mah battery and a new refreshed os in blackberry 10.
It was actually very smooth and pretty fun to use. Now. The next specialty award i want to give is for best windows phone now i haven’t reviewed a lot of windows phone devices this year, but people should know that there are a lot of good windows mobile devices out there. If you happen to love a microsoft surface or you’re really invested in the microsoft windows, ecosystem windows, 8 or windows, 10, then you’re going to like a windows phone, probably and i’m going to give that first place award or the only award for best windows phone to The htc one m8 for windows phone. I also want to give an honorable mention in that category to the nokia lumia 735. It also is sort of a really good budget smartphone, so it’s sort of straddling those categories, but it’s a really good pick either way.
I also want to give an award for craziest phone design that i saw personally this year and i’m going to give that to this little guy. The sharp aquos crystal. I did a video on all about why i think smartphone manufacturers in general should take more design risks and try to mix it up like this and sharp with this budget, offering kind of took it to the next level.
With this basically zero bezel display or one bezel on the bottom, in the form of a massive chin, and it really feels like a super compact phone but believe it or not. It actually has a five inch display packed in here. So it’s this tiny footprint. I thought it was really interesting to see and you should definitely watch the full review of this guy it’ll be linked below now. I also have to give out a bust of the year.
I have to give out an award for the worst phone that i saw really uh. It wasn’t a very good phone in any way. There was no real reason for people to buy it. There wasn’t really anything good that separated it for its price from the pack. It just didn’t really have anything going for it. It’S not even in front of me. It’S the amazon fire phone uh.
I don’t even want to say anything more than that. If you want to check out the video i did on it when it was first announced and i go over the features of it and what it is and it costs 650. But i think amazon’s gon na learn its lesson from this one and probably stick to the kindles. If it comes out with another fire phone i’ll be very curious to see what they change, but uh yeah i’ll leave a link to that video in an annotation or below it’s uh, it’s the bust of the year. It wasn’t really gon na hit anything good for amazon, so the best of the best. This is the last category phone of the year for 2014. best phone to come out during the year 2014, and there are a lot of really good options.
I could name probably three random phones on this table and they’d all be good, but my first place for best phone, and this is an again it’s an opinion. It’S one person saying what my favorite phone is, but my best favorite phone of the year for 2014 is gon na go to the htc one m8. This is an all-around winner from htc this year, an improvement in almost every way from the m7 of last year.
As it should be, and it really got the build quality discussion going for almost every phone that came out after it, samsung started putting metal in their phones after the one 1m8 apple came out with two all-metal iphones after the 1m8. This phone single-handedly got people talking about build quality just as much as any other smartphone feature. The only thing is it’s a little bit slippery since it has these rounded metal sides. So i opted to put this carbon fiber skin on the back of mine to help with grip and i’m also rocking the google play edition version of this phone. That’S available, that’s another, huge reason why i like this phone so much and if you look at the long list of phones that i had my main sim card in during 2014, the google play edition 1m8 was my daily for the longest duration for most of the Year i could come back to this phone after using anything else just to come back to the ridiculously fast solidly built boom, sound wielding sharp, bright, long, lasting smartphone that this is i’m highly satisfied, highly recommended.
If you get this zone, you’re – probably not going to regret it now my second place – and it’s a very close second place for my favorite phone to come out this year during 2014 – is the moto x. The moto x 2014 continues from the legacy of one of my favorites of last year, which was the 2013 moto x, and it’s still really good in a lot of ways. It’S one of the best built phones of the year, thanks to the added metal band around the whole thing, and it continues motorola’s strategy of delivering a near stock. Android experience with a few tweaks and additions here and there in order to keep up with the fast os updates. In fact, this phone is one of the few, with android 5.0 lollipop already, and it’s a great performer just so easy to recommend for first-time android users. Just like its predecessor was uh. The learning curve for a lot of its features are super minimal, unlike maybe some samsung or lg features that take a while to learn that are less useful, and this moto x also gave birth to the nexus 6. A few months later, so we can give it props for that and uh just got ta love that dimple. I like this one, a lot i’m gon na give my third place honorable mentions. I have two of them actually in this category for best phone of the year and those are gon na go to the iphone 6 and the lg g3, the iphone 6.
I hesitate to put because i like the iphone 6 plus, that much more, but the iphone 6 is an excellent all-around phone and it still tends to be one of those that i recommend to people a lot if you’re just getting into smartphones or if it’s someone’s. First smartphone, if it’s mom buying a smartphone and she has a budget to work with, i tend to recommend the iphone 6 and it’s one of the best iphones. Yet, despite the fact that it’s so thin and the battery is so small still really good uh and the lg g3, because it was one of the earliest to have that quad hd display, i love the design of it as well, uh with the very thin bezels On the top left and right again, an excellent design and a pretty solid phone again in a lot of ways, so you can’t really go wrong with any of the phones on this list again. The moto x awesome the htc one m8, really good. The iphone 6 and the lg g3 can’t really go wrong there and those are my phones of the year best of 2014.. So moral of the story: there are a lot of great phones to choose from this year, whether you’re into a large phone or a particularly small one or you’re working with a budget, or you love taking pictures or cameras whatever it is.
You can’t really go wrong with any of the ones here, so uh best of luck weigh the pros and cons. You’Ll probably be happy with what you pick also share this video with people who you think are in the midst of buying a smartphone right now. It’Ll, probably save you a lot of time and explaining thank you for watching this video and i’ll talk to you guys in the next one peace. .